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published on January 26, 2018 - 3:47 PM
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The promoter behind the planned Burn Out Music Art and Cannabis festival said he and his partners are considering suing the City of Tulare for forcing them to cancel the event this weekend.

At least the music part of Burn Out will go on Saturday night, with the headline music acts performing at the Cellar Door wine lounge in downtown Visalia, but it will be modified from what the promoters had planned at the Tulare County Fairgrounds in Tulare.

That event — billed as the first legal, marijuana-related event since the use and sale of recreational marijuana became legal in California at the start of the year — was supposed to include staff from a medical marijuana dispensary selling the drug to people with valid physician recommendations.

Tully Huffaker
Tully Huffaker

 

Tully Huffaker, a long-time concert promoter from Fresno, said he and his partners worked for months with fairgrounds management, Tulare government officials and the city’s police department to accommodate their demands, which had included allowing medicinal marijuana sales only inside one of the fair buildings and restricting the smoking of pot to people with medical cards inside that same building, not around the two concert stages.

But on Thursday, just two days before the event, things fell apart, Huffaker said, explaining that earlier in the week the state Bureau of Cannabis Control demanded a letter signed by a Tulare city official that the promoters had met with city staff, and the city would allow the festival.

“They said they would do it” on Tuesday, said Huffaker, adding that when he approached city officials to sign the letter Thursday morning, “they just told me, ‘No.’”

And without that verification, the state agency wouldn’t’ sign off on allowing the event at the fairgrounds, forcing the organizers to find a new locale to put on the concert without the cannabis element.

As for what prompted the city of Tulare to change its mind isn’t clear. Huffaker said he has been working with city officials and the Tulare Police Department since before he signed a contact with the fairgrounds back on Nov. 17, and things seemed to be going smoothly in the final week before the festival until Thursday morning.

City Manager Joe Carlini’s office referred questions to City Attorney Heather N. Phillips, but she didn’t respond immediately to an interview request.

But in an interview late last week, Carlini said he had just recently become aware of the planned Music Art and Cannabis festival. When asked if the city would oppose it being put on, he responded, “So far, I haven’t been told we are going to oppose this at all.”

As Huffaker sees it, the change of heart probably was the result of news stories in recent days about the event — the only element that had changed — which may have prompted some complaints about the marijuana element of the festival.

“I assume the level of attention got them scared,” he said. “Because everything was fine a week ago.”

Although the sale and use of recreational marijuana became legal this year, Tulare’s city council has opted not to allow any recreational marijuana businesses in the city, though two medicinal marijuana dispensaries operating there are allowed in the city limits.

A law signed last year by Gov. Jerry Brown allows the management at state fairgrounds the option to decide for themselves whether to allow marijuana sales or marijuana-related events, 

In an interview last week, the CEO of the Tulare County Fairgrounds Pamela Fyock said her board had voted to allow the Burn Out Music Art and Cannabis to occur on Saturday, as the board had allowed two, smaller events related to medical cannabis last year.

Huffaker said Fyock told him on Thursday that medicinal pot sales and smoking pot in the building that had been designated for that purpose would no longer be allowed.

“She told me it was illegal and we couldn’t do it,” he said, noting that he believed the sudden influx of attention may have worried Fyock and her board, prompting the sudden change.

While the concert still could have occurred at the fairgrounds, Huffaker said renting the fairgrounds was too expensive for a modified event that likely would have brought in fewer than the 1,000 people he had hoped would buy tickets. A reported 600 tickets had already been sold.

Anyone wanting a refund can get it from the point of sale where they purchased the Burn Out tickets. They were sold online at www.livemusiccity.com/event/4107. Tickets for the concert at the Cellar Door, starting at 8 p.m. instead of 4 p.m., are available at the site for the same price, but tickets for the fairgrounds event will be honored without the need to exchange them.

But making all these changes on the fly is expensive, with Huffaker estimating he and his partners probably will lose at least $10,000 in cash right off the bat, and maybe more once the numbers are crunched.

That doesn’t include the many hours put into organizing the event as originally planned at the fairgrounds and the blow to his reputation as a promoter.

And matters were made worse by Tulare officials waiting until the last minute to pull the rug from under him and his partners, as every day leading up to Saturday was another day of “more money being dumped into the show,” Huffaker said.

“Something has to come of it. It’s tremendously unfair,” he said of the city’s actions, which is why he and his partners are contemplating taking Tulare to court to seek restitution.

The group also will begin trying to find a new place to put on the music and cannabis event they envision, probably in April. But it seems highly unlikely it would occur in Tulare County or any other Valley county, considering how unwelcoming so much of this area seems to be toward the cannabis industry, which might include concerts with cannabis elements, Huffaker said.

Since word got out about what happened in Tulare, he said he has been swamped by phone calls and texts from as far away as Colorado from people who believe he and his partners got a raw deal.

“I think Tulare is just kind of a backward city because you can bring your child with you to the fairgrounds, drink 30 beers and drive home, and a cop will wave at you. This is some old-school thinking.”


Related: First licensed cannabis event in California coming to Tulare


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